


I'm falling down, when you're around

by heavenisalibrary



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [27]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 14:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3813394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So far as ideal situations go, arriving inside of the family birthday party Clara was planning on attending instead of outside of it with River in tow while Clara’s whole family is still under the impression that he’s Clara’s boyfriend is, well… not remotely one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm falling down, when you're around

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: you love me. real or not? eleven/river in case it needed saying. please :)

So far as ideal situations go, arriving  _inside_  of the family birthday party Clara was planning on attending instead of  _outside_  of it with River in tow while Clara’s whole family is still under the impression that he’s Clara’s boyfriend is, well… not remotely one.

It doesn’t help that things between he and River are a bit more out of sync than usual, and that she’s terribly young. He knows that older River would devote her time to turning him on inappropriately or cleverly forcing him to slip up and overall have a good laugh at his expense — young River, though, she’s all bravado and guarded expressions and although she merely raises an eyebrow at him when Clara’s aunt embraces him and goes on about dating her niece, he can see the tightness around her eyes and knows that this is a situation in which he needs to tread very carefully.

When he finally gets free of various relatives and a very apologetic Clara who, nonetheless, begs him to keep up the charade, he makes his way over to River where she’s standing in the corner nursing a glass of wine with her arms folded across her chest. When she’s older, she’ll deflect any upset she feels by forcing herself to be the life of the party, hoping he won’t notice. Now, though, she’s not nearly so good at hiding it. She barely glances at him as he comes to stand beside her, wringing his hands.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, “we were just going to drop her off and have a great time — I had plans! Proper plans, with a reservation and everything, although I can’t tell you about them because it’ll spoil it for when we do finally get to go — and now we’re here. Clara wanted me to apologize to you." 

River doesn’t respond verbally, just nods, and the Doctor shifts his weight back and forth, leaning up on his toes and tugging at his hair anxiously before continuing.

"We can go, if you want,” he says. She looks at him, and he immediately looks away from her hopeful expression because, “Clara begged me to stay, though. But I really will leave. If you want. But —”

“Don’t hurt yourself tripping over those words, Doctor,” River says, adopting a careless expression. “It’s fine. It’s one party. I’ll just stay out of the happy couple’s way.”

“Is that jealousy I hear, River Song?”

She huffs. “No. You said it’s a ruse, right?”

“ _Of course_ ,” he says, then, looking disgusted, “I would never  _date_  Clara. She’s…  _Clara_.”

River smirks. “Then there’s no problem. Not that there would be, regardless. I’m not your keeper.”

The Doctor furrows his brow, and starts to respond, but River’s turned away from him to speak to one of Clara’s cousins beside her. He wants to grab her and tell her that she  _is_  his keeper — only not in those words — and that she has every right to have a problem with the situation, but she doesn’t necessarily know that yet. They’ve been together in her timeline, and  _been together_ , but he doesn’t think they’ve ever really talked about it. It was always a forgone conclusion for him, when she was old and he was young — he knew from the beginning that he’d love her, that he’d be hers, and even though he fought it, he never wondered about it. He wishes he’d been more clear with her, and he’s about to butt into her conversation to tell her as much — or maybe just stumble uselessly around his words again — but Clara grabs him by the arm and drags him into the kitchen to grab a drink.

“I’m so sorry,” Clara says, the minute they’re alone.

“You said,” the Doctor says, “anyway, it’s River’s bad flying that got us into this mess. If she’d just landed outside like I'd  _planned_  —”

Clara rolls her eyes. “ _You_  were driving, Doctor.”

“Don’t change the subject,” he says. “I just mean it’s not your fault. And hey, it’s a party! Who doesn’t love a party?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Clara, pouring herself a drink. “Your wife, for instance?”

The Doctor shushes her. “She doesn't  _know_  that yet.”

“All the more reason to apologize,” Clara says, “she looks very cross with you.”

“She hasn’t slapped me,” says the Doctor, “I’d say that bodes well.”

“She hasn’t flirted with you, either,” Clara says, offering him a glass of water in deference to his hatred of most flavored drinks. “I’d say you’re on the proverbial couch, old man.”

The Doctor huffs and takes the water, tugging at his bow tie. He wants to disagree, but she’s probably right. He follows her out of the kitchen and immediately makes his way to River, sitting on the couch next to her so that he can whisper into her ear as she talks to a neighbor.

“You can’t be cross with me about this,” he says, “I didn’t do this on purpose. I meant to be on a date with  _you_.”

“Yes,” River says out of the side of her mouth, “and yet here you are, on a date with Clara, while I make up an increasingly dull and elaborate story about how I knew Clara in university.”

“Clara didn’t go to university,” the Doctor says.

“ _I realize that now_ ,” River hissed, “hence the ‘increasingly elaborate.’”

The Doctor scoots closer to her, resting one arm behind her on the back of the couch. She sighs.

“I'm  _sorry_ ,” he says, “really, River.”

“Doctor!” Clara calls from across the room, and the Doctor feels River stiffen slightly against him.

“Go on, then,” she says, turning away from the neighbor and smiling at him, but he knows it’s not a real smile. “Let her show you off.”

“ _River_ ,” he says, “none of this is real, alright?”

“Yes, my love,” she says, turning away from him as he stands to approach Clara across the room, and the endearment gives him hope that she at least realizes how petty she’s being. Not that he’d ever say that to her. River is dangerous enough at the best of times, but he’s ever-weary of pissing her off when she's  _young_  — he’s never too sure how deeply the whole 'raised to kill him’ thing is ingrained.

He spends the better part of an hour on Clara’s arm, feeling totally ridiculous and constantly aware that his wife is sitting across the room as he helps Clara make up bits and bobs about their fictional relationship and tries not to jump out of the way every time she touches him in deference to his wife’s eager trigger finger. Eventually, Clara gets pulled away, and he’s left talking to some distant relative about something he’s hardly paying attention to. He looks for River over the older woman’s shoulder, smiling too brightly at her as he makes eye contact, and River rolls her eyes, but there’s a bit of fondness to the gesture that makes the knot in his stomach loosen slightly.

“It’s great to see young people look so happy,” says the older woman.

“I’m not young,” says the Doctor with a smile.

“Oh, hush! You’re children,” says the woman. The Doctor smirks at River as River makes an expression of exasperation at him as one of Clara’s uncles natters on and on and on to her, standing a bit to close. “You must be very fond of her.”

River sips her drink, smiling at him as she pulls away, and he feels his face make that stupid, besotted expression it always does when he’s looking at her. He’s only half listening to the woman, and his mind’s all tangled in River, and so he immediately responds with, “oh, yes. Very, very fond.”

“Of course you are,” says the woman. “She’s a lovely woman.”

“Absolutely brilliant,” the Doctor agrees as River meanders a bit closer to him. “Best person I’ve ever met. I love her a great deal.”

River chokes on her drink as she takes another sip and looks slightly panicked as she meets the Doctor’s gaze. He feels panicked, suddenly, too, realizing she’d been in earshot, realizing what that had sounded like — he’d been talking about River, of course, he’s always talking about River, but…

“I’m so happy Clara’s found someone who loves her, then!”

“What,  _Clara_?” the Doctor says, already stepping away from the older woman to follow River as she escapes into the kitchen. “Who’s in love with Clara? Bless them, anyway, she’s so short and bossy —”

He hurries away before the woman can respond, following River into the kitchen and finding her apparently waiting for him, leaning against the kitchen counter and biting her lip.

“That wasn’t what it sounded like!”

“Of course it was,” River says.

“River,  _no_ , it wasn’t — I wasn’t talking about  _Clara —”_

 _“_ You were talking about me.”

“No, I was talking about  _you_!”

River stares at him. It takes him a minute.

“Hang on,” he says, “you’re not mad?”

“I’m not mad,” River says, “just…”

He steps nearer to her now that he’s fairly certain she’s not going to injure him, and reaches out to place a finger beneath her chin, lifting her face so that she has to look at him. She looks almost  _scared_ , which isn’t an expression he’s in any way used to seeing on her face.

“I didn’t expect that,” River says.

“Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Yes,” she says. He opens his mouth to apologize, but she stops him, shaking his head and flattening a hand against his chest. She spreads her fingers over the fabric of his short, chewing her lower lip before she speaks again. “And no. I think I’m a bit uncomfortable with how comfortable with it I am.”

The Doctor wants to say something, but he can tell she’s still chewing things over, and so he just nods, holding his silence as she mulls. She traces a finger around the buttons of his shirt, and he leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead, lingering as near to her as he can, resting his hands on either side of her on the kitchen counter, as though a physical reminder that she’s safe with him.

“You said none of this was real,” River says. “You love me. Real or not?”

He smiles at her, and he must look as gone on her as he feels, because she smiles immediately in response. “Real,” he says. “In case I haven’t made it obvious.”

She tiles her head up and closes her eyes and he leans in to kiss her, softly, sighing as she wraps her arm around the back of his neck and pulls him closer, rising on her tip toes to meet him. It’s all lips, tender and slow, and he presses her against the counter very gently, just trying to get close to her. He lifts a hand from the counter to grip her about the waist, kissing her more deeply when there’s a shriek from behind them. 

“Oh,  _Clara_ , no, don’t come in —”

Clara bursts in anyway, accompanied by a few various relatives as the older woman the Doctor had been speaking to earlier looked aghast. The Doctor stepped away from River slightly, though he left his hand resting against the small of her back. Clara grins at them —  _honestly_  — but after a moment seems to remember that the Doctor’s meant to be her boyfriend, and she jumps to life, adopting a cross look, but the Doctor can see the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“Hey! Who do you think you are! That’s my boyfriend,” Clara says, stomping over to them. River raises a brow and opening her mouth to respond, but Clara cuts her off, “no, you can keep him. Doctor, consider yourself dumped.”

“ _Finally_ ,” the Doctor said, sighing with relief. He stepped away from River to press a smacking kiss to Clara’s forehead. “Clara Oswald, thanking you.”

“Now get out of here,” Clara says, “and take your homewrecker with you.”

River kisses Clara’s cheek quickly as the Doctor grabs River’s hand and tugs her through the throng of Clara’s baffled relatives and out the door.

“And don’t forget to pick me up next Wednesday!”


End file.
